


Trypophobia

by glaciesdraco



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fear, M/M, Pranks and Practical Jokes, misleading title
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:02:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23996455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glaciesdraco/pseuds/glaciesdraco
Summary: Izaya is horribly surprised when Shizuo tells him to come to bed early for once.
Relationships: Heiwajima Shizuo/Orihara Izaya
Comments: 4
Kudos: 135





	Trypophobia

**Author's Note:**

> NOT ACTUAL TRYPOPHOBIA IS DEPICTED IN THIS FIC. It's sort of like a play on how the joke plays out? Izaya reacts horribly is all you really need to know.

“Are you planning on coming to bed soon?”

Izaya peeked up from his computer to see Shizuo standing there, already dressed for bed and hugging his pillow to his chest to boot. His hair was ruffled from where Shizuo had roughly combed through it and without his sunglasses on his eyes looked wide and downright doleful.

Izaya didn’t realize that he’d froze to look at him. “I will be in a bit.”

“Are you working on something big?” Shizuo said, sounding a bit rushed. “Like, is it supposed to take a long time?”

“Nothing especially big, I’m just juggling two or three different things right now,” Izaya typed dubiously into his keyboard before looking up again. “You never take interest in my work, is there something on your mind?”

“What? No, I just…” Shizuo sighed, long suffering. “Come up to bed early if you can.”

With that, he turned and started trudging up the stairs. Izaya scowled and called out to him.

“Hey what’s with that? You ask me some weird probing questions about my work, ask me to ‘come to bed early’ and then walk away from me?”

“I don’t ask probing questions,” Shizuo glared. “And yeah, so what? What’s wrong with wanting to know what you’re up to?”

“Ah, so this is because you suspect me of something?” Izaya relaxed his shoulders and returned to his work with a bored look but he was not the least bit relaxed. “What, did someone trip in Ikebukuro today and you suspect my evildoing?”

“I wouldn’t put anything past you,” Shizuo glared, but then he shrugged. “I was mostly asking because it seems like you don’t ever want to come to bed on time.”

“Most people have to do more work than walking around with their friends collecting money from sad horny people, Shizu-chan.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that I have a lot of work on my hands!” Izaya snapped, glaring at Shizuo and letting him know some of exactly what he was feeling from Shizuo’s comments. While he was never the type of person to defend himself against every accusation, even he had to admit that being accused, by his _boyfriend_ no less, when he didn’t even have anything going on at the moment, stung a bit.

Shizuo seemed to catch on to the look Izaya was giving him and shrugged. “I really didn’t have anything in mind that I thought you were doing; I was just wondering if you have to work right now.”

“I always have work that needs doing, Shizu-chan. I used to have a secretary to help with some of it, but alas, those days are over. I fall behind at times.”

“You, falling behind? I can’t imagine.”

“Just why do you want me to go to bed right now anyway? It’s not like you’ll sleep.” Which was true. Shizuo typically just watched TV from their room and fell asleep draped entirely across their bed- which was annoying since he was very difficult to move.

“I just wanted you in bed tonight,” Shizuo said plainly, with a shrugging gesture. “I didn’t… I mean, why do I have to have a reason?”

“Because not having a reason is very inconvenient!” Izaya snapped, but he stood up from his desk anyway, unplugging his computer and massaging his temples with his fingers. “Alright already, I’ll go to bed right now. Since you’ve given me a headache and all.”

Shizuo’s shoulders relaxed and his demeanor changed almost immediately. He was practically smiling as Izaya passed him by.

“I can’t believe I’m being manipulated by Shizu-chan,” Izaya muttered, stalking up the stairs. Shizuo followed after him a few moments later, casually passing him halfway up the second flight, brushing against his shoulder.

“God’s sake it’s only nine thirty,” Izaya grumbled, passing by his bookshelves before heading up to his room and plugging in one of his backup cell phones there. He liked to keep them in separate corners of the apartment for versatility so it took him a few extra minutes to join Shizuo in the bedroom. Shizuo was crawling into the covers and looking up eagerly at him as he entered.

“You look like a child waiting on a bedtime story.”

“Shut up. Just brush your teeth.”

“Yes thank you Shizu-chan I know how to get ready for bed.” Izaya headed to the bathroom, turning on the light. The moment everything was illuminated for Izaya to see, he shrieked the most girlish sound he had quite possibly ever made in his life. He stared into the mirror in horror, except he could not because it was covered edge to edge in…

Fisheyes. Dead fisheyes decorated their bathroom mirror, and Izaya couldn’t back out of there quick enough. So many of them in his eyes all at once they were like a cluster of repetitive holes all gathered together in the mirror. Izaya backed out of the room, nearly tripping over his own feet. He was so shaken that he had to sit down on the floor, staring wildly into the empty lit bathroom with absolute horror. He could still hear the sound of his scream in his own ears. He paled and his hands turned clammy.

“Sheesh, Shinra told me you didn’t like them, but I didn’t think you’d actually _scream_ ,” Shizuo was saying as he walked over and crouched beside of Izaya’s trembling form. “Yeah, it really wasn’t that funny. I’m glad I didn’t record it like Shinra wanted me to. I wouldn’t have even done it if he hadn’t harped on me for hours about always forgetting his birthday, but I don’t think it was all it cracked up to… are you shaking?”

Izaya said nothing, his entire body was frozen in place, numb. He felt… betrayed? But he had always laughed if he was ever betrayed. He couldn’t look Shizuo in the eye, because then Shizuo would know he had gotten to him, even though his brain was trying to reason that Shizuo could already tell. Emotion overcame his mind for quite possibly the first real time in his life and he didn’t know what to do. He tried to smile, but all that he could muster up was a weird twisted frown with the corners of his lips slightly quirked upward.

“Oy Izaya, are you… crying? Are you really crying over that? It was just some pictures. It was just pictures of dead fish, are you serious?” Shizuo’s voice was incredulous but if Izaya had a more rational mind he’d be able to pick out the increasingly worried tone.

He’s just seeing things, Izaya’s mind supplied. He couldn’t process enough words to speak.

“Oh jeez, Izaya. Oy, did that really scare you that badly? Hey, I’m sorry…” Shizuo was wrapping an arm around his shoulder and Izaya unstiffened.

“OUT.”

“Huh?”

“Get OUT!” Izaya exclaimed. “Get _out_ , don’t touch me, get the hell away from me!”

“I…” Shizuo looked like he wanted to say something, face somewhere between blindsided and completely nonplussed, but he got to his feet as Izaya asked and started exiting the room. Izaya just sat there facing the bathroom door with his shoulders shaking. Keeping his eyes on the other even as he was crossing the doorway, Shizuo saw Izaya reaching up and grabbing his own chest before he decided to turn back.

“I didn’t know you were gonna react like that,” Shizuo said as he re-approached, “I just thought you would scream or cuss at me, I didn’t…”

“I told you to get out!” Izaya snapped back up at him, tears showing vibrantly on his face now. “I don’t want to talk about it, I just don’t wanna look at you right now!”

Shizuo’s frown softened. “You can’t expect me to just leave you here acting like this can you?” he said as he kneeled beside the other. “I mean I knew you didn’t like them, but you were terrified.”

Izaya hid his face against his arm and Shizuo heard him sob. Shizuo had never seen him so shaken up before, and that was saying something.

He had half a mind to kick Shinra’s ass for this stupid idea, but ultimately, he knew he had no one to blame but himself.

“And I guess all that bullshit I was saying before made it kinda worse, huh? I kinda thought you could tell I was up to something, but you played along anyway since it was getting on your nerves.”

Izaya didn’t say anything. He wiped his eyes, staring at the floor and trying his best to calm down. He really hadn’t noticed at all. He had just assumed… no, how could he dare to allow himself to think like that? That Shizuo would never do anything like this. Maybe it wasn’t that he thought Shizuo would never mess with him, but he never would have guessed the other would make an effort like this. That was probably cleared up with Shinra’s involvement. Ah, how badly he wished he could laugh this off.

“I guess I really fucked up this time. I’m sorry.” Shizuo said, trying to continuously fill the silence in the room since the person who was usually up to that task had been rendered incapable. Izaya bit his lip to keep it from trembling, but he glanced over at Shizuo, prompting the other to reach an arm over and pull him into a hug. Izaya had become a pasty deadweight in nearly no time at all. It wasn’t like Izaya was sensitive, but Shizuo did know that the other had grown more vulnerable the more time they spent together, and he had unintentionally taken advantage of that.

“You j-just…” Izaya started to speak and with that Shizuo released him a bit. “You just surprised me is all.”

“It seemed like more than just surprised.”

“Yes well,” Izaya wiped a tear from his eye, “Just a bit of an overreaction on my part.”

He tried laughing it off, but more tears sprang to his eyes as he spoke. It wasn’t often that Shizuo felt this guilty for something he had done, but this time he felt like a complete scumbag and now Izaya was making him feel even worse by not even properly getting mad at him. That was usually how it worked- Izaya only ever got mad at the little shit that didn’t even really bother him. It was when Shizuo really cut him deep- deeply enough to be considered betrayal- that the other couldn’t even manage to yell at him.

Izaya continued to sniffle a little bit, clumping a bit of his shirt sleeve into his palm to give his hands something to do.

“Is it…” Shizuo asked in trepidation, “Is it something from your childhood?”

Izaya stared down at the ground with the strangest smile on his face. “It’s complicated.” He said after a long span of seconds had passed.

Shizuo nodded, not wanting to push the subject any further. Izaya seemed a little bit better though, wiping his eyes and grinning blearily at him.

“I never would have expected Shizu-chan to be capable of such a cruel prank though, I was very caught off guard. I do hope you’ll have that taken down in the morning.”

He stood up as if that was that. Shizuo stood with him and took him by both arms.

“I will.” He said, “Are you… okay?”

“I’m fine,” Izaya said, but his eyes were dulled out. Shizuo knew that look. Izaya was shutting him out, trying to protect himself from being shaken up like that again. _Betrayed._ “I’m gonna go back to my work now.”

He pulled away but Shizuo wasn’t letting go. He knew it was wrong. He knew he didn’t have a right to, and the look Izaya gave him when he tightened his grip was nothing short of desperate.

“Izaya,” Shizuo said, “I’m sorry. Please don’t go back downstairs.”

“Shizuo,” Izaya said, breaking out into an amused smile that was as fake as it was wide. “I’m not angry. It was just a stupid prank, I just… I was already busy.”

“I don’t care what you say.” Shizuo said, “Me doing that to you really hurt your feelings, and I know it.”

“Then why did you do it?”

“I don’t know!” Shizuo admitted. “I just… I had no idea how you’d take it! I thought maybe you’d yelp a little bit, but then you’d just be mad. But you’re not mad, you’re hurt.”

“I’m not hurt. I’m just a little shocked that my boyfriend would coerce me into coming upstairs to be with him only to find out it was all a prank planned by who other than _Shinra_.” A little bit of what Izaya must have really been feeling dripped out as he spoke. “Is it so wrong that I want a little space?”

Shizuo grimaced. “No. No of course it’s not. I just… I didn’t know how you’d react.”

“With hysteria?” Izaya said delicately. He frowned, then smiled, and wouldn’t meet Shizuo’s eye. “I didn’t either. Looks like you have more power over me than we both thought. Good detective work Shizu-chan.”

He firmly pulled away, for real this time, and exited the room leaving Shizuo to contemplate how the fuck he was gonna make this up to him.

The thought of getting revenge had definitely crossed his mind, but the more Izaya recalled what happened the more exhausted the whole thing made him feel. He had no idea how much of himself he had opened up to Shizuo at this point and somehow that was the scariest part of it all. Had he made a mistake by surrendering himself to such a human desire? Letting himself feel like a normal person for the first time in his life?

The worst part of it all was that it was all over a prank. Izaya grit his teeth. And it wasn’t like he could take it out on Shinra either because it was _Shinra_. He sighed, a little self-deprecatingly to himself for letting himself wallow in it. It was not the right time of day to be pondering on his underlying issues with Shinra.

It had been quiet upstairs for a while now, and Izaya looked up pensively at the darkness as he typed into his keyboard. He had managed to distract himself for almost an hour. He sent a text to someone. He sipped his tea that had gone cold while he was upstairs. The chat rooms were rather dull tonight, and he suddenly found himself with significantly less work than he’d originally expected. He had managed to gather all the information he’d been hired to do and more in just ten minutes. At this point he was just avoiding go back up there.

Now he really did laugh to himself. He was being a big baby over this, and he knew it. But when he recalled the eyes, the glaring, soulless eyes looking back at him from his own mirror, all he wanted to do was hide.

The first time he’d ever thought about death, he was watching a sushi chef on TV chop off a fish’s head. How odd, he thought, that so many things were killed on behalf of human benefit. He’d always loved food and watching the preparation of food when it showed the unique culture and personality of whoever happened to be making it at the time. He’d sit at the bar in a restaurant with his dad, watching the chef’s hands move from place to place. He even enjoyed watching chefs prepare sushi, but today for some reason all he could seem to think about was how very dead the fish in front of him was. That glossy stare, that mindless fixation on nothing at all… he had never taken an interest in any creatures before, but to see this dead thing with no goals, no purpose, no _anything because it was dead_ …

It made him feel sick.

That sudden realization made his stomach turn and he had to turn off the TV. His mother asked him what he was doing, but he was unable to answer her as he had already run to the bathroom to puke. When he looked at himself in the mirror afterwards, all he could think about was how glossy and dead his own eyes were by comparison.

Izaya had a hand over his own mouth, staring off into space when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey. I cleaned up the bathroom if you want to sleep now.”

Izaya looked up at Shizuo staring down at him, increasingly concerned.

“Hmm? Oh, thanks.” Izaya wasn’t expecting to be snuck up on, so he avoided eye contact with the other.

“It’s getting late. If you’re still mad, I’ll just plan to sleep on the couch, alright? I think you should get some sleep. You look sick.”

“I’m fine.”

Shizuo didn’t reply, but it was obvious what he thought about that response. They waited another beat or so, while Izaya typed an email on his keyboard to absolutely no one.

“I’m really sorry…” Shizuo said quietly. Izaya froze, scowling.

“There’s nothing left to say about it. I’m not mad. It was a stupid thing to get upset over. I should’ve just thrown a knife at your head and been done with it.”

“But you didn’t throw a knife. You crumpled to a ball and that’s the problem.”

“There’s no problem alright? You just surprised me. It was very unexpected.” Izaya smiled at him. “You’ve always defied my expectations no matter the circumstances. Don’t worry yourself about it any further.”

“I don’t get why you won’t just tell me the truth,” Shizuo sighed. “Is it like… something from your past maybe? That you don’t want to talk about?”

“I don’t want to talk about _any_ of it,” Izaya said, “It’s stupid, and I don’t care, and the whole thing is over with and I just want us to move on with our lives!”

Shizuo exhaled sharply. “ _Fine._ ”

“Fine.” Izaya said, sounding satisfied.

Shizuo glowered at him a moment longer. “I still feel like I really messed up though.”

Izaya sighed heavily, looking at him.

This was getting them nowhere talking about it. Izaya unplugged his computer once more, sighing at a text and going to the sink to dump out his tea.

“Come on,” he said, offering his hand to Shizuo. “You’re not sleeping on the couch, alright?”

He pulled Shizuo up the stairs now, leading him into their bedroom. Shizuo’s eyes bored into the back of Izaya’s head. Izaya glanced over to meet his stare as he approached the bathroom. Halfway expecting Shizuo to have left one of the pictures in there just because he thought Izaya wouldn’t expect it, Izaya hesitantly turned on the lights. All that stared back at him was his own reflection. He sighed deeply.

“It was a stupid idea,” Shizuo said from behind him, and Izaya hurried to get his toothbrush ready. “I didn’t like it even when Shinra was pumping it up to me. Still, I wouldn’t be upset with him. I don’t think he knew it would upset you that bad. He thought you’d scream like a girl and I could record it for his ringtone for you or something.”

Izaya was getting pissed off hearing Shizuo talking about him being “upset” on behalf of something Shinra had planned. He stared solemnly into the sink, listening quietly.

“I thought having actual fish in here would be too much and all, but I figured pictures wouldn’t be enough. It honestly just looked like a bunch of holes stacked on top of each other. I’m surprised you could even tell that they were fish.

Izaya bowed his head, feeling nauseous. When he spat out his toothpaste it took a physical effort not to gag. He glanced at Shizuo tiredly to let him know that he was still listening but fuck if he didn’t want him to shut up. This seemed to frustrate Shizuo further.

“It would be easier to move past it if you’d just yell at me about it Izaya, so can you please? If you’re really not mad, then just… yell at me like you normally would.”

“I can’t.” Izaya said softly.

“Why?” Shizuo asked him, like he already knew.

“I just…” Izaya’s face contorted for just a second. “I just can’t.”

Shizuo studied Izaya’s profile. “Okay…” Shizuo said, “Then I’ll drop it.”

Izaya sighed. “Thank you.”

They crawled into bed together, and when Shizuo offered his arm for Izaya to curl into Izaya laid down and wrapped himself in it. He felt a touch of self-loathing as he did so, knowing that Shizuo was holding him close because he knew that Izaya was still upset. Even he didn’t fully understand why the whole thing still shook him up. Why had he recalled all that ancient history? Could something as stupid as a panorama of poor-quality images really remind him of the fact that he felt dead inside? As he heaved yet another sigh under his breath Shizuo pressed a kiss to the back of his head.

“I know what it feels like to get upset over dumb stuff,” he said softly, “So I get it if you just want to play it off.”

Izaya hitched a breath. He was glad his back was to Shizuo because tears had sprung to his eyes once more. He covered his mouth with his forearm.

“Sometimes stuff upsets us,” Shizuo said, “That seems dumb to others. But to us, it’s like… I dunno. Connected to some deep underlying issue you’ve always had with yourself. Like it reminds you of some part of yourself that you can’t stand, and you just overreact.”

Izaya held back a sob. He played it off as a long-suffering sigh, but he squeezed Shizuo’s wrist from where it was wrapped on his waist.

Shizuo nuzzled closer. “Sorry,” he said. “I know I said I’d drop it, but I just wanted to say that. Sorry if it doesn’t help at all.”

Izaya scoffed, wiping his eyes. He gave Shizuo another meaningful squeeze. They laid together like that for a long while into the night. Shizuo was almost convinced that Izaya was asleep when the other spoke up.

“Your brother says there is nothing you’re afraid of.”

“What?” Shizuo slurred slightly, not expecting to be spoken to.

“I can’t imagine what it is that you’re talking about upsets you,” Izaya explained, “Because I asked Kasuka-san what he thought would scare you the most and he had no helpful ideas.”

Shizuo blinked, processing what he said. “Why were you asking Kasuka about what upsets me?”

“Because I was deeply considering getting revenge.”

“But… you aren’t now?”

“No,” Izaya sighed, “It was pointless. All he thought you were afraid of are attractive older women and the store running out of pudding. You know I think he genuinely thought these were helpful answers.”

“They’re the right answers.” Shizuo added.

“You’re a moron.”

Shizuo squeezed him affectionately. “Shut up.”

**Author's Note:**

> LOL happy birthday Izaya. This year I'm going to give you some TRAUMA! <3 This is only the beginning BOY.


End file.
